Results 13,001-13,020 of 18,761 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: However, if the child was not visibly a child, then it is a matter where the Supreme Court's decision applies.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: We discussed this issue last year. It is not easy to address it because the distinction which Deputies are attempting to draw is somewhat artificial. At the end of the day, if the jury has a reasonable doubt about whether the accused knew the child was under age, it must acquit in the aftermath of the Supreme Court's decision.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: That is my very point. If there is no evidence from which a jury could draw an inference beyond reasonable doubt that the accused knew the child was under age, perhaps the accused is entitled to a direction. I am not going down that road with this Bill; I am merely saying we are dealing with exactly the same situation that exists with regard to sexual assault.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: That is the point I am making. If I begin to go through the law on sexual assault, this Bill will become immensely long and complicated and I will start addressing problems which nobody thought about before we started this evening's discussion. I do not want to reopen the question of whether a genuinely held belief, even though unreasonable, is a defence because, according to my...

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: If we amend the Constitution to provide for strict and absolute liability offences, we will be able to deal with the issue in a much more comprehensive way. At present, we are dealing with an imponderable.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: We will have to revisit the issue.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: When I realised last Friday that we had gotten this wrong, I decided we should search extremely carefully to make sure no other mistakes have arisen because I could imagine what the gentlemen opposite would say if my good friend Finbarr O'Malley found an error.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I can appreciate that. We did a thorough search and, in terms of these procedural aspects of the law, we dealt with every case in which sections 2 and 3 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935 were mentioned in any other statute. We have updated the law to take account of that.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: There are two typographical errors in this section. The top of page should read paragraph "(aa)", not "(ia)", and section 4(3) should refer to "12B", not "12A".

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I understand the clerk proposes to deal with them as typographical errors.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: The 2006 Act prohibited certain sexual acts, including sexual intercourse, buggery or acts described in section 4(1) of the 1990 Act such as sexual defilement involving humiliation and aggravated circumstances of that kind. However, what we have now is a situation in which a girl aged between 15 and 17 years can engage in heavy petting with a boyfriend aged over 18 without him committing an...

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: There was confusion in the House and I eventually said if I was wrong, I would——

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: When I eventually unravelled what happened, a view that it was not defensible to make this distinction emerged and if we were striving for gender equality, on which the Bill was predicated, we should not say it is okay for girls to do with their boyfriends what boys could not do with their boyfriends, subject to protecting children from potentially serious damaging sexual acts, set out in the...

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I am not arguing that the Deputy's point of view is ridiculous or anything like that. I am not getting on some politically correct high horse and saying there is no substance to the Deputy's point. What I am saying is that one might say very heavy petting, including masturbatory behaviour, by a girl aged 16 years with a man aged 36 or 56 years——

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: ——is extremely unattractive as a notion, but it is not a crime.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Perhaps it should be a crime and maybe we should look at that. However, whatever we do, I do not believe there is a basis for saying a 16 year old gay boy should be dealt with differently from a 16 year old heterosexual girl in the same circumstances. I do not see there is a huge difference between the two. If, as a Legislature, we say a girl is entitled to behave in a manner which would...

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I am not suggesting it is but it is not criminal.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: All I will say is that before we go down that road, let us remember it was Deputy Jim O'Keeffe who caused ripples at our all-party committee by saying he wanted the age of consent to be stuck at 17 and that Deputy Howlin and I took a different view. The answer to that is: "I do not know." This is not an easy one and I do not want to get into the matter. The principle of the 2006 Act was...

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: Deputy Howlin should become a barrister because he is putting an awful question to me, namely, whether I am happy that both should be in a situation where one of them is and one of them is not criminalised.

Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) (Amendment) Bill 2007: Committee and Remaining Stages (6 Mar 2007)

Michael McDowell: I do not know whether I am happy with the concept of a 16 year old girl engaging in heavy petting with a 55 year old man. All I can say — to use the old colloquialism — is that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.